


The Only Exception

by luninosity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Declarations Of Love, Fix-It, Fluff, Forgiveness, Happy Ending, Hope, M/M, Peace, Post-Movie(s), Reconciliation, Reconciliation Sex, Sexual Content, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 07:07:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1067499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik finds snow tactically suspicious. Charles enjoys the peacefulness. Forgiveness, fluff, some sex in the library, and a future together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Exception

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Title from the Paramore song of that name. It seemed to fit them both perfectly.

_and up until now I have sworn to myself_

_that I’m content with loneliness_

_because none of it was ever worth the risk, well_

_you are the only exception_

_you are the only exception…_

Erik Lehnsherr had never been fond of snow.

It wasn’t the cold. He’d trained himself to ignore pathetic weaknesses such as physical chills. It was the tactical _complications_ of snow that bothered him.

He stood beside Charles, looking out at the mounds and heaps of whiteness. The storm’d come in during the night. Shrouded the mansion, and the grounds, and the universe as far as he could tell, in glittering holiday-card billows.

“Peaceful,” Charles murmured, shoulder propped against the doorframe. Almost negligently; but he’d needed the cane to manage the steps five minutes before. The wheelchair sat in a closet, intended for the very bad days. If Charles ever admitted to the very bad days. So far this hadn’t happened. Not yet, in the fast-fading single month since the worst day of all.

Erik did not believe in peacefulness. He never had.

He told himself as much; he told himself, looking at Charles, knowing the exact placement and consequences of that scar-star on a pale freckled back, that he would never know peace, because he would never stop being vigilant.

He’d hurt Charles. It was that simple.

He’d been hurting as well, heart ripped open by Charles’s carelessly chosen words on a satin-sand beach under merciless sunlight; he’d been so lost in rage and pain that all he could see was more of the same, no way out from the black and red, not for him. And then he’d heard that medieval-spires voice breathe, shocked and blank with horror, _I can’t feel my legs…_

He’d seen Charles, then. Not the carefully constructed charmingly arrogant academic with an answer to everything, not the man who had to lead their ragged team because he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else having to shoulder that burden, not the young boy facing down an intruder with a baseball bat rather than call to the family who wouldn’t come to help…

Just Charles. Beautiful and brave and bleeding; tactless and clumsy and passionate about the future, about having a future at all. The light that made all the shadowed places in Erik’s heart perk up and hope to be a little less dark.

He’d flung off the helmet, sickened and shaking, and taken cold hands instead, and thought as loudly as he could, _you will be well, I will save you, I am here_.

He’d gotten Charles to a hospital—teleportation to save a life this time, please, _please_ —and the doctors had been able, for the most part, to mend some of Erik’s greatest atrocity. Not all. But some.

Charles got cold easily, in the aftermath. He’d lost weight despite the physical therapy, and had no real reserves left. He claimed he was getting better, and Erik knew that this was true, but couldn’t quite believe it.

He was here with Charles, here at the mansion, not because he couldn’t imagine the alternative. He could. It filled him with dread. He wasn’t used to wanting anything, at least not anything beyond the one burning fire of revenge. Shaw was dead, and Erik had never had any plan for the rest of his life after that, no room for any other desires.

But Charles was alive. And Erik was finding that he did have one other want, and it was very clear: he wanted to be right here. Beside weary-ocean eyes.

Today there was snow here as well. He scowled at it.

Snow was sticky and deceptive and treacherous. It could conceal deep potholes and leg-snapping traps; it left tracks when it fell from boots onto carpet. It was silent to his senses, nothing to grab onto or control or anchor. It made him uncomfortable. A phantom itch under his skin. And Charles thought it was peaceful.

He said, “It is snow,” which was as close as he could come to agreement, and he wasn’t going to argue with Charles, he wasn’t, not with the cane sticking its length accusatorily out of the umbrella-stand by the door.

Charles had been staying out of his head, since that day, as well.

“Very good, Erik,” Charles said, entirely dry, something of a feat considering the dampness of the air, “you’ve comprehended the weather. It’s hardly a personal affront, you realize.”

“You’re not the one shoveling the walkways.”

If Charles, out for a recuperative wander across the mansion grounds, tripped and fell—No. No, Erik would be there, Erik would catch him. Would turn all the shovels in existence into a fury of blizzard-defeating proportions to get him back to the house and safe.

“I can ask Alex to help if you’d like. Pity, though, I do enjoy it…” Not looking at him. Gazing a little wistfully at the colorless snowglobe world. Erik didn’t know what to say, to do, other than stand with him and try to see what sapphire eyes saw, looking outward.

He hovered beside those eyes through all the days, every pain-drenched victorious step. Through the nights as well.

He’d slept on the hallway carpet outside Charles’s rooms the first two post-hospital nights, until that door’d opened and an impatient twilight gaze had found his and said, “Honestly, Erik, you needn’t sleep on the floor, we’ve shared my bed before,” and Erik’d trailed behind him to the heap of luxurious pillows and sheets and had lain there wide-awake and petrified, heart thudding against his ribs.

Of course they’d shared a bed before. Joyously, exuberantly, discovering each other, all uninhibited hands and mouths and desire and delight. Charles had made him laugh, in bed; had kissed him and teased him and introduced him to sheer delirious heights of pleasure, and had held him while they both slept, careless and exhausted and tingling with bliss.

 Past tense, all of that. Not present. Not now.

Charles hadn’t tried to talk him out of standing guard. Had invited him in, instead. Had fallen promptly asleep, face tight with pain, and hadn’t kissed him.

They’d never said _I love you_. Erik had thought about the words, once, in a post-orgasmic haze, chess pieces scattered on the carpet, the marks of his mouth on Charles’s elegant throat and thighs and hips, the shape of that smaller body pulled tight against his. Charles had already gone to sleep, worn out by metal-assisted enthusiasm and inventiveness; Erik took some pride in this achievement, considering their respective levels of previous experience.

He’d held Charles close, committing every inch of him to memory, compact muscles and preposterous hair and soft unguarded exhales fluttering over his skin. Charles trusted him. Challenged him to rethink the world over a chessboard, ate breakfast every day when Erik made it for him, held out graceful wrists for the slide of metallic bondage—no objections to the desperate need to _have_ him, take him, keep him flushed and trembling and ecstatic always—and, now, slept calmly in his arms.

Charles _trusted_ him. And Erik, astonished, had understood that he wanted nothing more than to be worthy of that trust. Charles was foolish and idealistic and believed that somehow Erik wouldn’t hurt him, and Erik…

…wouldn’t hurt him. Somehow just couldn’t let those blue eyes be wrong.

He’d wondered, behind mental steel walls in case Charles was inadvertently listening through dreams, what love felt like, and if this was it, and how he could know, and what he could do if it turned out to be true.

Two days later they’d gone to Cuba, and the world had changed.

He didn’t know how to change it back. One more failure. Impotence, when he’d always previously had a plan, a goal, a stratagem.

He’d never known how lonely helplessness could feel.

He’d just have to try harder. Two goals, new ones. Keep Charles safe, at least from now until the end of time. Make Charles smile again.

He could. Surely he could. He couldn’t think otherwise.

Charles adjusted a shoulder, still leaning casually on the doorframe. “Why do you hate snow? I’m only curious.”

“It hides tracks,” Erik said, trying to intimidate the crystal-white piles with all his pent-up emotion and his best glare. “Anyone could’ve crept up to the house in the night.”

“Erik, really.” Charles regarded this proclamation with some dismay. “I’d’ve heard your hypothetical anyone coming. Miles away.”

Erik, drinking in every line of his body, the tilt of his head following a lazy snowflake’s tumble, wanted to say: of course you would, you can do anything, you saved even me, you’re extraordinary, I believe that the way I’ve believed nothing else in this terrible universe.

He said, “If Shaw could make one helmet, someone else could copy the design. You’d never know.”

The expression in those eyes, then, was one he’d never seen before. The bullet came back, out of nowhere, out of memory, and struck again; but it hit Erik this time, and not in the back, but straight on, right in the chest, and left him bleeding out internally.

Charles answered, “You’re right, of course,” and pushed himself upright and away from the door.

Erik would’ve followed, but he was busy trying to staunch the flow of blood from the heart he’d so recently rediscovered, and he forgot how to move his legs for a minute. By the time he could, Charles was ensconced at the breakfast table and chatting to Hank about dominant alleles and pea-pods, of all things, and he could only offer eggs and toast which Charles let grow cold, caught up in scientific exuberance and the return of an excitement that Erik hadn’t, in four weeks, managed to give back to him.

That night he dreamed of cold. Freezing, frozen, frostbite, huddled barefoot in a barn in a German winter, trembling, not giving up, never, never, and it hurt—

 _Erik_ , Charles said, and folded hands around his, flesh-and-blood heat. _It’s all right. You’re safe. You’re here. I’m here._

Erik shivered, and then stopped shivering, because he was being hugged by Charles, arms and legs wrapped around him as if to keep him safe, which was clearly ridiculous because Erik was taller and deadlier and more angry—

 _Go to sleep_ , Charles said, breathing against his neck, warm and determined and inexorably real, and Erik, surprised, dropped off almost instantly, into dreams of sugared tea and pineapple-walnut scones and endless vast libraries containing every book ever imagined under the sun.

He woke up alone and well-rested and consequently extremely confused. No Charles in their bed, no Charles in the room.

Unacceptable. All the metal in the room quivered. He got a grip on himself, hastily—the walls were creaking as studs and joints tried to respond—and swung legs out of the clutch of too many blankets and then stopped.

The sheets were wrinkled…oddly. Differently. As if…Charles hadn’t been lying on his own side.

He examined his pillow. Took a second to process. The scent of shampoo that wasn’t his, expensive and clean-smelling, lingered.

Real? Not a dream? How could it be real? Charles barely even tolerated him, these days, which Erik accepted because he understood.

Must’ve been tactically sound. Avoiding nightmares. Charles probably hadn’t been able to sleep with Erik’s dreams; that made sense.

He pulled on slacks and a turtleneck, black and tidy, and did not think about the way Charles’d once run fingers over his chest and murmured that he looked unfairly dangerous in black.

He went out, waving the door shut behind him, methodically listing in his head all the places bruised-gemstone eyes might be.

He found Charles outside on one of the library balconies, not wearing nearly enough layers, curled into a cushion-stuffed chair in a way that couldn’t be good for his spine. The cane lay abandoned on the floor, where it leered up at Erik in meaningful voicelessness.

The sun shone above, but it was a brittle pale kind of shining. Wintery. Ice in the light. He disliked it on principle.

“Charles?”

“Hmm?”

I miss you, Erik thought. Thank you for last night. I think I’m in love with you.

I’m sorry.

“…aren’t you cold?”

“No, not really. I’m enjoying the weather. I know you don’t, though. You don’t have to stay out here if you’d rather be inside.”

“I’d rather you be inside.”

“Too noisy. Too crowded. Too many—never mind. I’ll come in when I finish.”

“Too many what?” The mansion couldn’t be _that_ crowded. Not that cavernous sprawl of a house, not with occupants numbering in the single digits. Emma Frost, Azazel, and Janos hadn’t wanted to stay, but they kept popping in at random moments regardless, claiming they were testing the defenses. Erik, who’d watched Janos eat two dozen of a newly-regenerated Darwin’s chocolate biscuits, and who’d listened to Emma bicker genteelly over opera plots with Charles, had privately estimated that they’d give in by the new year if not sooner.

“Too many interruptions,” Charles said airily, which was manifestly not the original sentence. Erik did not flinch, because he’d trained himself out of visible tells many years ago, but he wanted to.

“If you’re going to stand around and glower at me, could you be useful and check my mathematics? I feel as if this can’t be right, but I’ve done it twice and got the same numbers.”

He took the paper. Skimmed the figures. “These seem correct.”

“Oh. In that case, damn.”

“…what is all this?”

“I’m trying to figure out how to turn my inheritance into a functioning school for, ah, gifted students. Mutants, if you’d prefer a non-euphemism.”

“A school.”

“I am a professor. Or I’m qualified to be, once I’ve got students.”

“Yes…you are…”

“And I rather like the idea of having a safe haven. You’d think it’d be enough—I mean the finances—but even the Xavier wealth’s not inexhaustible, and we’ll need more than just your standard renovations. I can’t sell off any of the Westchester property; legal restrictions, but I’m not sure I’d want to anyway, in case we need expansions, or open space for training, for exploring new mutations…There might be some disposable antiques in the attic.”

“Antiques?”

“Heirlooms, that sort of thing. Here, you don’t have to hold onto that.” Charles took his paper back, and appeared to forget Erik’s presence in favor of worrying about the care and feeding of hypothetical future students. Rescuing the world. With open arms.

Erik shifted feet. Attempted, “If I brought you a blanket, would you use it?”

“Why wouldn’t I,” Charles said absently, staring at his pen as if it might have a solution.

“You should,” Erik said, because it was true, and went back inside and took the fluffy down-filled topmost concoction from the bed, after also taking several deep breaths in the silence of the room.

He dropped the fluff on preoccupied shoulders. Charles jumped. “What—oh. Thank you.”

No. No, never. “You freezing to death would solve none of our financial problems.”

That…had come out all wrong. He’d meant that he didn’t want Charles to freeze to death, that even the thought of Charles being not-alive made him feel awkward and afraid, and those were two emotions that Erik had ordered himself never to feel.

“Oh, I don’t know, we’d have one fewer mouth to feed, and no concerns about the staircases and elevators, I could just leave everything to Raven…”

“No.” Fumbling, trying to broadcast it: _Charles, please. No_.

 _You…wanted me to hear that?_ “I was only joking. Badly, I admit. I’m sorry, Erik.”

“You can hear anything you want,” Erik said. “All of me.” _You_ _were real, last night. You were there._

 _I could never let you have nightmares alone._ “And…thank you.”

“Don’t,” Erik said, out loud this time, and reached over and tucked the blanket-folds more closely around sweater-bundled shoulders. The snow glittered, mute and powerful _. Don’t say that to me_.

“Oh,” Charles said, meeting his eyes. “Then I won’t. But I might think it, you understand. When you bring me blankets. Or tea. For which I am in fact grateful.”

“Tea?”

He came back with a steaming mug, Earl Grey with extra sugar, the sweetness that always used to spike a thrill of golden pleasure in shared thoughts. Pressed it into Charles’s hands, whispered, _I will always bring you tea if you’ll let me_ , and then fled, because he couldn’t bear to look at those eyes in the wake of that admission.

Besides, he had an errand to run.

Three hours later, a man named Max Eisenhardt had emptied multiple well-hidden bank accounts based in numerous discreet locations, threatened or bribed or persuaded the closest New York branch affiliates to hand over gold and cash and the odd gem collection, consolidated everything into various boxes, and returned to the Westchester estate, where he went looking for Charles.

He found ocean-wave eyes and pensive hair in the library, gazing at a biography of Charles Darwin but not actually reading. The flicker of curiosity must’ve come through; Charles looked up and sighed. “I’ve given up on the finances for the time being. I thought I’d try to distract myself. Where did you go?”

“Out,” Erik said, and wondered what this meant, that Charles was listening to him, picking up his questions, noticing his absence.

He didn’t know what had shifted and loosened and come free between them, or when it’d happened, but something had. And his chest felt lighter. Like he could possibly at last remember how to breathe.

He dumped all the boxes on the floor at puzzled feet. “Here.”

“Erik, what…” Charles bent down gingerly, plucked the lid off the topmost one. Gold winked up at them indolently, confident in its own allure. “Where did you…is this because I said…did you kill anyone for this?”

“No!”

Charles narrowed eyes at him. “Are you certain?”

“No. Yes. I mean—it was a long time ago and they were Nazis, Charles!”

“So that’s a yes. But, Erik…”

“It’s untraceable, if that’s your concern. No records. I was careful. Not even evidence of the accounts, after today.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking.” _The accounts—Erik, is this everything? All of it?_

 _Yes?_ “Is it enough?”

“More than.” _This IS everything. You’re giving it to me—us—the school. You—_

“You know whether I mean it. You don’t have to ask.” _You were right the first time. I’m giving it to you._ And then, before he could talk himself out of it: _Or to us. If you want—us_.

“Erik,” Charles said again, eyes wide. _I believe this is a moment when I ought to say thank you…_

“Thank you,” Erik said, jumping in first, and held out a hand, because he had the impression that Charles wanted him to.

Charles took it. Curled strong freckled fingers around his, the way they’d touched in dreams. _May I show you something?_

_Anything._

A smile, swift and brilliant and so unbearably hopeful that Erik caught his breath. _Here, then…why I like snow._

The world poured in around him, endless and chaotic and jubilant. Charles’s perceptions, he understood, minds burning like stars in an infinite sky full of equally infinite variety, love and loss and heartache and first kisses and final bedsides, commitments made and broken, dreams and aspirations and determination, chamber music and opera and jazz and blues and rock and soul, swirling together, bright and brassy or whisper-solemn depending on where Charles chose to focus, and Charles looked at it all, light and dark, with such clear-eyed unflinching love…

 _Yes, I know, it’s beautiful_ , Charles observed, still smiling. _I always think so. But it gets a little tiring, you see—_

And they dove into pure white serenity, cool unruffled horizons. The blanket of new-fallen winter, muffling footsteps, lying heavy over voices, shaping a silent blue night. Pine and fir and clean sharp scents, washing the debris away, turning jagged-edged telepathic flotsam into crystalline beauty.

_It’s always quieter in winter. A kind of hush over everything. Solitary. As I said: beautiful, but in a different way._

_YOU are beautiful_ , Erik said, meaning it, and caught the nonphysical blush.

_This—it doesn’t keep anything out, not really. But it’s tidier, or I like to believe so. Shielding, of a sort._

_Shielding._ A question; there’d been a coil of bittersweetness around that thought. A nettle-sting memory, buried under the snow.

_Oh—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—it’s only this house. Growing up here. It’s not important._

_If you’d like to tell me_ , Erik said softly, and held his hand, the two of them standing together in the unmarked drifts, not letting go.

He felt Charles sigh, bodiless and contemplative. _You asked me too many what, earlier…too many memories. I need to—get out of these walls, sometimes_.

With a rapid-fire sizzle of images: bruises, casual blows, snapping bone, the taste of blood. Suspicion— _what can he do how does he sometimes disappear but not all the time here now make him listen little freak_ —and loathing for the boy who’d inherit the majority of the Xavier wealth regardless of stepfather and stepbrother and oh how angry Kurt’d been on finding _that_ out and so much red spilling everywhere—

 _About the disappearing_ , Charles observed, wry with time and distance, _I suppose you could consider that my early training. I wasn’t as strong as I am now. And in hindsight it only made him angrier when he did find me, but of course I never thought of that at the time._

 _Charles—_ He could barely breathe. Dizzy with old injuries that weren’t his.

He’d never known. He’d thought he’d known Charles. But he’d never heard even a whisper of this. And he thought: this is why, this is what Charles understood better than I did, this is why the man called Shaw is dead, not because I killed him but because Charles knows about pain.

Charles was holding his hand. Erik swallowed. Hard. _You—are you—all right? I mean—if you’re hurt—_

_Now? No, oh, goodness, no. That all healed cleanly. Years ago, and he’s dead now; fire in his lab, only casualty. I’m selfish enough, or I was back then, to be glad he was gone; these days I don’t think about it much, or I didn’t until coming back here. But I am fine. I wouldn’t’ve shown you, but you did ask._

He’d not meant the physical wounds. And he was both thankful and furious that the man named Kurt was gone: thankful because anyone who injured Charles deserved a fiery death, and furious that—once again—there was nothing he, Erik, could do. No way to fight back against long-ago scars.

_Thank you for—for telling me._

_Oh, Erik, I’m not that fragile. I won’t break if you touch me, and I can FEEL you thinking those things about the restraints and your hands and your mouth on me, and would you stop thinking that, do you honestly think I’d let you do any of that if I didn’t want you to?_

_…no._ He did believe that. Charles could stop him. Could have stopped him. Would have, if it’d been necessary. He trusted Charles.

 _And I trust you_ , Charles said, with a small incorporeal shrug. Erik stood very still, clutching that hand in his.

_You do?_

_Of course._ The tea-and-hedgerows accent sounded surprised that he’d have to ask. _I know who you are, Erik. I’ve always known you’re worth trusting._

_I hurt you._

_You were angry and I said thoughtless words and you’d just executed the man you’d built your life around and I’d just died with him. I think we can both be given a second chance, perhaps?_

_I…killed you._

_Yes, that’s under here too somewhere._ Charles poked at the snow with one intangible boot-toe. _It’s all right. I’m still here. So’re you. I’m sorry I’ve been rather distant. I’ve never fallen in love and then been telepathically killed and THEN shot in the back and rescued and smothered in tea and blankets before. It’s been a bit complicated. But you ARE here._

_Charles?_

_Yes?_

_I love you._

_Oh,_ Charles said, eyes enormous, _you—_ and Erik shouted _I love you!_ at the top of his lungs and felt the world tremble with it.

 _I love you_ , Charles answered, laughing, as snow tumbled out of nowhere at all, giddy euphoric celebration, _I want you here always, I want chess with you and arguments with you and cups of tea—_

 _Yes,_ Erik said, and he meant it, no questions now, only certainty, silver and shining as the snowfall. Not out of guilt. Not out of a need for atonement. The emotion was simpler and more pure than that.

Nothing else in his life ever had been easy; the future, thorny and unknowable, wouldn’t be either. But this, with Charles, looking at Charles, falling in love—

This always had been.

And he could have it. They could have it, now. _This is what I want. Everything, with you_.

Charles kissed him without moving, telepathic delight ribboning through their minds, moonlight and champagne and luminous elation, the world blissfully quiet and existing solely for the two of them, himself and Charles and the taste of those lips, firm and definitive against his.

 _I love you_ , Erik told him again for no other reason than just to say it, and Charles laughed again and did _something_ at the back of their heads, the cool pale winter refuge shimmering away and replaced by the scent of old paper and the sight of tall wooden shelves and cozy leatherbound books. _I know, I know you do, and I—_

“—love you, Erik, I wanted to hear it out loud,” and Erik kissed him again for that.

Somehow he’d ended up sharing the sofa, sinking onto a cushion during the flood of memories; that wasn’t good enough, so he put both arms around Charles and flipped them neatly over, and felt a bit smug about how easily he’d adapted that particular move to cradle the other person protectively instead of moving to incapacitate him.

Of course, when the other person was Charles, doing anything less was not an option. But he let himself be satisfied with the outcome anyway. Charles, in his arms.

_I rather like that, as well._

“I love you,” Erik told him, his turn to voice the words, and emphasized them with another kiss, deep and hopefully promising.

“Yes,” Charles said, and put a hand into his hair and pulled him back down. Erik not-quite-accidentally fused the knob into an unopenable lump on the library door, at that; Charles laughed again, and slid appreciative hands under his turtleneck, and they rediscovered each other in a wonderful tangle of arms and legs and bodies, positions both old and new, cautious experimentation with angles and support and limitations and explorations. Erik held out a pulse of apologetic regret, only once, at a tiny wince of imminent discomfort; Charles shook his head and sent back _possibilities_ , and that proved to be the case, as they both decidedly knew how to be creative, and so put shared imaginations to very good use.

In the afterglow, sated and sweaty and content, he lay there with one leg dangling off the sofa and Charles equally contentedly sprawled atop him, Erik’s arousal softening intimately inside that beloved body, Erik’s slickness dripping between pale thighs. He never wanted to move again.

“Same here.” With thoroughly pleasured drowsiness. _You’re magnificent. And I am utterly sticky._

“So you are.” He tightened arms around Charles, proprietary _. I like you this way._

_You’re cleaning the sofa, then._

“Later. Rest.” He touched lips to the top of that head, on his chest. _Please._

“Oh, well, if you’re going to insist…” Followed by an unfairly adorable yawn. Erik’s heart turned a somersault, effervescent with joy. _Five minutes…we ought to shower…and allow the others back into the library at SOME point…and, oh, it’s snowing, I can feel it!_ Sleepy happiness, nestled into his mind, his heart _. I do like the snow._

“I know,” Erik said, thinking about softness and stillness and quiet refuge, coaxing blue eyes into sleep; thinking, too, about certain white-gold pieces he was fairly sure he remembered in an unopened box, and whether he could shape them into a band, two matching bands, and how soon. _I know you do. So do I._

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art inspired by The only exception](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2886911) by [Mikanskey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikanskey/pseuds/Mikanskey)




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